(ELEC) Even a blind pig ….
can find an acorn once inawhile.
I don’t know how many times people have mentioned problems with lights flickering and my first response is to call the power company.
One very serious problem can be caused by a bad neutral, but I have never seen one. That is until Christmass. I was back in Lousiville and visited with my niece. The nights where fllickering. But the important thing to notice is that they where getting BRIGHTER. I grabbed my handy RS DVM that I keep in my truck and measured voltages from 117 to 127 at different outlets and differnet times over a couple of minutes period. And the voltage at the living room receptacle went UP a volt when the dining room lights where turned on.
The next day LG&E was out and verified that the neutral connection was bad. They did a load test on it and it had a 13 volt drop. It should be less than 1-2 volts.
Now it is semi-normal to see a very slight dimming when an AC or Heatpump starts up, speically in an older house or when there have been a bunch of new building and the transformer is loaded up.
But anything more than that, specially BRIGHTENING light are an indication of serious problems. A loose neutral can cause fires, explosing light bulbs, and burned out elelctrical equipment.
While the propblem might be on you side most likely it is on the power companies side as it is exposed to the weather. So give them a call first.
Replies
Bill, thanks for that info/reminder
Do I understand correctly that when the neutral is bad, essentially any imbalance between the two 110 v legs of the 220v service gets "pushed back" from the higher drawing leg through the the other leg?
(Or is that just another example of how the theory of residential electrical service eludes my grasp? {G})
I know that the few times I've seen a broken neutral between house and pole, the local power co has come out immediately to fix it; even in this day of deregulation and cost cutting!
Tool Donations Sought
I'm matching tool donors to a church mission to Haiti - we're shipping a bus converted to a medical facility in January (we hope) and can fill it with clothes, tools and all sorts of stuff needed in that poorest of all countries. A few hand tools or power tools can provide a livelihood for an otherwise destitute family. Please email me if you have tools to donate.
Thanks to Jeff and David and Jim and Rich and Steven and MArk for their offers!
The list keeps growing
At the moment, we're looking at shipping the stuff in February, 2004
"o I understand correctly that when the neutral is bad, essentially any imbalance between the two 110 v legs of the 220v service gets "pushed back" from the higher drawing leg through the the other leg?"
I don't like that analogy, but I can't come up with any thing else.
Without the neutral connection to the transformer it becomes a voltage divider.
For example you had a 1440 watt heater (10 ohm) on one leg and a 120 watt bulb (100 ohm) on the other leg. Then you have a total resitance of 110 ohm between 240 volts, giving you 2.183 amps flow.
Then you would have a 218 volts across the light bulb and 22 across the heater.
> and a 120 watt bulb (100 ohm) on the other leg ....
Yes, except that the resistance of the light bulb filament (and the heater too) varies substantially with temperature. Measured cold, the 100 watt bulb will probably read about 10 - 15 ohms, depending on how much current your meter uses to test it.
Incandescent and halogen lights pull a current spike when you turn them on, sort of like a motor does.
Back in the 1930's, some of the early motion picture sound equipment used ordinary light bulbs in a crude voltage regulator circuit. This is somewhere in Howard Tremaine's old Audio Cyclopedia.
-- J.S.
"I was back in Lousiville and visited with my niece." And you didn't call? We could have done lunch.
Who Dares Wins.
I knew he was coming in, but had some trepidation about asking for any of his time away from his family. That is in addition to his holding me responsible for any bad weather (VBG).
Dave
I did not have your phone number. <G>
But I really did not have much time.
Edited 12/30/2003 7:21:58 PM ET by Bill Hartmann
I understand. That's the problem with vacations, you never have time yourself. Got any plans on coming back through let me know.
Edited to add, You can always borrow my tools for the relatives honey dos if you need them, when your in town.
Who Dares Wins.
Edited 12/30/2003 7:28:20 PM ET by Gunner
I don't seem to get into any of those kind of things 9thank God), but I end up computer trouble shooting.
My sisters system was SLOW. Connected at 14k. She was using a wireless phone jack.
But my niece live in the house directly behind them. They have high speed cable and use a wireless router. They where complaining that the router disconnected each time that they go a call on their portable phone. I showed them how to change the channel and that seems to solve that.
Then I suggested that my sister "borrow" their wide band connection. I really don't know the what the range it, but they said that would bring the laptop over and see if it worked their.
BTW, did you see my comments in the oyster stew thread. I did get to Mazzoni's for a couple of rolled oysters.
Computer trouble shooting eh? Then you should have stopped by here LOL.
I did read your comment on the oyster stew thread and passed the link onto the family e group. After researching it some more I got a big craving for anything oysters and went on a binge last weekend. LOLWho Dares Wins.